Writer’s Block Post

For the first time in a while, I had a moment of writer’s block. All this week I’ve tossed around ideas of what this entry should be, and come out with jack shit. It’s not that my life as a pampered whore has been less interesting this week, nor is it that I don’t have a laundry list of writing assignments to complete, but I haven’t been able to distill anything into something worth writing.

The strip club has been empty: not just lacking in clients but also lacking in strippers, which led to a surprisingly busy night for me last week. I didn’t have a single regular reach out to book a session. Instead I had to make friends with strangers and shoot my shot. There is a thrill to this kind of dancing. It’s the thrill of the hunt, stalking prey, watching their movements from afar before pouncing. There were only five dancers working Tuesday until around 10p, and two of them had disappeared to the back to nap or scroll in search of the end of the internet, which meant I had my pick of the customers coming in. It was by no means a busy evening. A handful of men milled about, watching the stage without tipping a single dollar. A few tipped a modest two or three dollars. Whenever a client tips me two or three dollars, I don’t know what their intent is, even if they stare me down, and linger beside the stage. Three dollars isn’t enough to buy a cup of coffee these days, let alone to get anybody’s attention. Let alone to get my attention.

I’ve been spoiled. This year I reached new heights in what I expect to make in a night, and while I have had my moments of glory, I don’t feel it the way that I did when I began six years ago. I don’t feel the excitement I felt leaving with my first $400. I can’t tell if it’s something I’m mourning or if it’s just an ongoing mental negotiation as I feel the physical costs of working for this long. Yes, I have had my first major shopping spree and got to experience the adrenaline rush of spending $8k of someone else’s money on designer goods, but on the flip, I have also learned that yes: my hips, knees and wrists can pop all together in a crescendo of long-term damage I will have to reckon with at some point in the nearish future.

I was listening to a few of the baby strippers talk about their physical damage. One said that she had endured major nerve damage from dancing and was now going to physical therapy. Another complained that her shoulder hurt and she wasn’t able to lift one of her arms. The two of them looked like they were younger than twenty-two, one of them looked like she wasn’t even twenty. The one in physical therapy suggested the other try stretching her shoulders via a modified plank. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an onsite physical therapist or a discounted connection to a massage therapy office? Of course, I know that’s wishful thinking, after all, the bar is literally on the ground.

And yet, we all continue on dancing because the money is too good and the hours are too flexible to really complain. I’ve considered a 9-5 or at least something more consistent, but then I remember that I’m able to take a week off every month to deal with my PMS; that I can jet off for a long weekend at a moment’s notice; and that I can sell a single dance and leave for a last minute Kanye show without having to worry about losing my job. Which is exactly what I did Thursday. I called in my special client who I knew would take care of me. I gave him a half-hour dance and then got my manager to cash me out. I arrived and left in the blink of an eye, with $2,500 stuffed in my bra as I crossed the city to witness Kanye and Drake share a stage. My manager was frazzled. He told me in Spanish to just let him know next time, so that he could have my paystub ready. He didn’t try to pressure me to stay longer or tell me I would be penalized during my next shift. Instead he let out a tired sigh and handed me my dance money.

For whatever reason, my bosses love me. I don’t entirely understand why. Yes, I work hard and bring in money without much drama, but I am also providing extras, which is a liability at the end of the day. When I checked out early, I had to stop by the office to cash out, and while I was there, I got to see all of the CCTV feeds from the dance booths. I watched clear as day as one of the strippers gave a dance in one of the Skyboxes. Her customer stood up and pulled her close to ballroom dance. It was a charming little human moment, and yet I realized with dread how clearly my bosses had to know every detail of my slippery boundaries. I wouldn’t even be surprised if bouncers and other auxiliary staff members popped up to watch sometimes. I felt vulnerable, and yet I knew we were in a mutual standoff. Yes, they could blackmail me with the tapes, but as much as I am breaking the rules, they are doubling down for hosting full service sex work. They facilitate our modest little brothel, which would be a prosecutable trafficking crime if anyone decided to take action. But the thing is, I know my club tacitly supports our activities. My bosses wouldn’t cheer when I arrive and find ways to come by and give me a hug if they weren’t cool with the sex worker that I unambiguously am. I don’t know if it adds to my allure, knowing that I’m promiscuous, but maybe?

A few of my coworkers have major crushes on me. I suppose it happens, working in proximity with people especially in such an intimate setting. I’m not immune. Even after I walked in on Rose taking a shit, I still thought romantic thoughts about taking her out for a night at the Korean spa followed by a cozy dinner. Maybe romance gives us a mental break from the grueling monotony of work. Even though the hours sometimes suck and the pay is hit or miss, getting the rush of seeing your crush is enough to motivate you to show up. But it’s complicated at the strip club. I’m awkward in regular life with my clothes on. Having to navigate getting hit on while I’m in lingerie creates a host of other issues. I can’t hide my body for the most part. I have to continue working even if I feel uncomfortable. I know that there are sexual harassment provisions that I can turn to in the event that I feel particularly cornered, but I don’t want to go there. I like my coworkers who have crushes on me, in a platonic way. They keep their distance mostly and only occasionally pop over when necessary. Perhaps surprisingly, it is significantly better than what I had to deal with working in the restaurant industry. At least with stripping, the sexual harassment training is taught with an exclamation point (!!!). My club is particularly cautious. I notice how they reign the male staff in when they get a little too googly eyed over dancers. We recently hired a number of bouncers and floaters after a prolonged period of being short staffed. A few of my coworkers used to vent to me about working for weeks without a single day off. One of them walks with a limp that comes and goes, depending how long he has to stay on his feet. While the draw of hanging around strippers all day is certainly powerful, the reality is that it’s grueling for everyone. The staff works long days, into the morning, more often than not counting the hours as they pass. Twiddling their thumbs in mind, numbing boredom. Axel keeps a dumbbell in the VIP booth to do curls in his downtime. There isn’t much to do when the club is slow. When it’s busy however, it’s nonstop legwork, running up and down stairs, checking booths and keeping diligent paperwork, supervising the customers and preparing for the possibility of navigating a physical altercation. For strippers, it’s a million micro squats and isolated pelvic movements as we lap dance for hours on end, sprinting around the clubs in high heels, and throwing ourselves into pole tricks on stage. We’re (almost) all in it together. The exception being upper management and the ubermensch club owner who shows up randomly and manages to stress everyone out.

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned Mike, the man who owns my club. He’s a short, pugnacious man who believes he has a real shot as a comedian. I’ve heard in his downtime he hunts for sugar babies to keep him company while he does meth. The irony of owning a strip club is that you technically aren’t allowed to hit on your employees. Of course, this rule is regularly broken, but it’s a dangerous transgression to make. Crossing this line has resulted in a slew of very expensive lawsuits, and congrats to the brave strippers who have sued the shit out of their bosses for harassment. A lot of club owners are wary of doing themselves in. What I’ve noticed happen instead is that they become regulars at a neighboring club or shop for a stripper baby on sites like Seeking Arrangement. Mike vaguely propositioned me a few years ago. He said he would love to take me for a dance but that he probably shouldn’t. He handed me $20 for “looking so beautiful” and he left it at that. It was a particularly unpleasant exchange. If he had cornered me and pursued the dance, I don’t know what I would have done. The same thing happened when I was raped at Deja Vu. Dino had invited me to his office to talk about “promotional travel opportunities” and before I knew it, the door was shut and I knew I would never be able to work there again. I’d been warned about closed door meetings with managers by other strippers who had suffered the same fate as me, but when that moment happened, it was hard to know up from down. Strippers are fantastic at turning customers down, but even with these skills, it can be hard enforcing these boundaries with bosses. And we shouldn’t have to. It’s not the job I signed up for. I may consent to strangers diddling my pussy, but that consent doesn’t extend to my boss or coworkers.

A lot of baby strippers expect stripping to be a low contact sport, and for some it is. Some clubs heavily enforce no-touch rules. The strippers make the majority of their money on stage or dancing in public booths. But for many dancers, there is a lot of touch involved. Stripping is sexual work. It is the performance of promiscuity, even if dancers avoid contact with customers. Society likes to claim that men don’t like promiscuous femmes, but I disagree. Sexual exhibiitonism is valuable, and historically has been rewarded across many cultures. Many courtesans lived posh lives, traversing social boundaries and building generational wealth. Ritual prostitution was a venerated, integral part of a number of religious traditions. Nowadays social capital and influence goes to our erotic models. And yet, a lot of us have internalized shame even as we exploit the many opportunities sex work provies us. We also face shame when “loose” boundaries are crossed, and we have to explain where the line was to people who believe a whore is a whore is a whore. To the people who say you can’t rape the willing. The people who use our consensual decisions against us when we claim we have been violated. All of this beauty, pain, and complexity can live in the same home. And it does.